Iran's Crazy Men

On the same day Ahmadinejad asks to visit Ground Zero, Iran is said to be putting together plans to attack Israel.

There might be a time to have U.S. troops out of that viper pit just so they don't end up in the fallout--literally.

Robert Jordan Dead

Many of you might not care, but Robert Jordan author of the Wheel of Time series died Sunday. A friend of mine started me on the series while I was in Chiropractic college. I vacuumed them all up and continued on with them. They fill up a shelf by my Tolkien books.

Jordan created a fantastic world filled by male and female energies. He captures gender perspectives, political realities and cultural differences and folds them into a believable world. If you haven't read his stuff and you enjoy fantasy, get started. It will take a while to get through them all, but it's a break from reality.

Some people read romance novels. I read fantasy. Told you I was a nerd.



H/T Glenn Reynolds

Home Schooling: Week 3, Is the Honeymoon Over?

First of all is it Home Schooling or Homeschooling? I see it both ways and I don't know the proper usage and it bugs me.

Both kids were in a puddle of tears today. I'd say that's a resounding success. Why were they crying? I actually pushed them to comprehend what they were reading. They had to write a one paragraph summary of the story thus far. The faucets turned on when they had to re-write the sentences into something coherent. That's called editing. Not that I do it, but do as I say and all that. The paragraph summary will be happening every day from now on, they've been informed. They're not happy.

".....Elementary School was so much easier!" Wahhh!

Yes it was. Welcome to Dr. Melissa's den of home school horrors. You can enter any time you like, but you can never leave.

After reading through the curriculum, I realized that I hadn't been mindful of any goals for this education other than get through the pre-made syllabus every day. But after training my mind with the book The Well Trained Mind, I decided that I needed to be more focused.

My goal is simple: Comprehension. I want my children to actually understand what they're learning. Memorization is the foundation, of course, but if they don't "get it", especially the Autistic one, the kids might as well be a computer. So I renewed my math and writing teaching efforts. And the vocabulary test is long and challenging. And they hate it.

But then we jumped in the pool, while the other kids were still in school and all was right with the world.

When does the honeymoon end? Because this one hasn't lasted long at all.

Worth Noting

Gateway Pundit reports the outrage of Sunni and Shia toward Al Qaeda. The locals make quick work of the bad guys.

Mark Steyn notes that loving the enemy won't make the enemy go away:

We should beware anyone who seeks to explain 9/11 by using the words "each other": They posit a grubby equivalence between the perpetrator and the victim – that the "failure to understand" derives from the culpability of both parties. The 9/11 killers were treated very well in the United States: They were ushered into the country on the high-speed visa express program the State Department felt was appropriate for young Saudi males. They were treated cordially everywhere they went. The lap-dancers at the clubs they frequented in the weeks before the Big Day gave them a good time – or good enough, considering what lousy tippers they were. Sept. 11 didn't happen because we were insufficient in our love to Mohamed Atta.

Amen, brother Mark. Another reason I'm not a pacifist.

And here's another reason. CQ and Ace (Purple Avenger)shine light on this embarrassment. Can you imagine your mother and sister calling your CO because Annapolis is a military school. Who knew?

I must confess, I always thought Annapolis was a marketing arm of Kellogg and was commanded by Captain Crunch, so this naturally came as quite a surprise to me.

One of the reasons I love the web, apart from the insightful commentary and people filled with wit and intelligence, is indulging in other people's indulgences. For example, LaShawn Barber loves Hanson, the music group. While I'm neutral on Hanson, her love for Hanson makes me smile. The Anchoress loves Derek Jeter and Brin and opera in general. I do enjoy opera, but don't listen to enough. I find that I seek silence as often as not--it's noisy with kids around. So I listen to her choices and get filled up. Ann Althouse is an amateur photographer. Her choices of subjects reveal as much as her writing does.

Michael Yon posts a MUST read. I know, I know. I say that all the time, but it's true. Read this line: "Our military is a powerful tribe." Now, don't you want to go see how powerful?

More evidence of what to expect when the economy melts down. And things don't look so great here either. And they won't be good here, and by here, I mean Here, America, if this continues.

And here's some disappointing news for my sister. Barry Manilow refuses to play on the view because he might be around one of Those People. So much for diversity and inclusion, 'eh Barry? So sad, how narrow-minded and prejudiced people can be.

The New Nano

Even the commercial bugs me, so the whole marketing Babel that is Apple seems askew this time. The fatness bothers me, too. James Lileks says:

Anyway. I looked at the Nano, marveled at the screen, played with Cover Flow, held it in my hand, said a silent hosannah for the miracles of modern technology, then left the store without one. Because I don’t like it. I should check the tank to see if the Kool-Aid level is low, but I’ve never liked the new Nano. It’s too squat and stubby for my tastes. Naturally, this means that people who do like it are wrong and have no aesthetic sense and I sneer at them, preferably from behind a pseudonym on a gadget-blog comments section where I tout the virtues of another player that weighs six pounds and has an interface that makes a wall of Egyptian heiroglyphs look like a Dick and Jane primer.

New technology does breed sneering. And it does breed cheering. This I cheer for. I almost told the husband, but I see a gift in his future and so I refrained from sharing the cheering. I keep thinking we'll be on gadget overload. I keep thinking wrong.

Illegal Immigration & Economic Woe

Maxed Out Mama discusses the economic situation in Europe which mirrors problems in the U.S. market and economy. Much of the problem there, like here, was driven by housing speculation and illegal immigration. She says:

The danger that non-stakeholder immigration poses to an economy is universal. See this 2005 Bear Sterns commentary on the illegal American workers. The study discusses the problem of miscalculating the cost of public services, but ignores another fundamental: non-stakeholder immigration (any immigration which causes the immigrants to be excluded as a class from full rights in the society, whether by legal means or by sub rosa means) inflates some assets, notably rental housing, short-term, but lowers the overall capacity of the population to consume long-term, which eventually causes a cycle of deflation. The problem with immigration in Europe is nearly universal; generally high taxation rates prevent even legal immigrants from accumulating capital.

I'm no economist, but it seems to me that illegal immigration is like living together and not being married. The illegals don't feel tied to the country and when a family situation, job or something changes that was unexpected, they leave. This would hold even with a sophisticated guest worker program. (And, watching the immigration debacle continue unabated, what evidence is there that the government will be able to manage this guest worker beast?) We Americans use the illegal immigrants for cheap labor and services, use them up, and send them packing once they've served out their usefulness. The relationship is selfish all the way around, and doomed to failure in principle.

Legal immigrants are married to the success of the country and make different decisions about their future. America needs to make becoming a legal immigrant more efficient.

Illegal immigration will be visited again. As the economy continues to soften, scapegoats will be sought. This concerns me most of all. And scapegoats will be found all over. Some will deserve the wrath they receive.

The latest round-ups of illegals seems to be what MOM has pointed to in the past--an attempt to relieve the tension amongst legal citizen's economic outlook. As more legal citizens lose their jobs, they'll go back to doing "jobs Americans won't do". I see these round-ups as the worst sort of policy. It's ruthless and craven. It's wrong.

The government seems to be conceding that they're incapable of keeping illegal immigrants on their side of the border. It's much easier to find the people who are working. Why isn't the government rounding up the gang-bangers? Well, they're not taking jobs "Americans won't do", for one.

The Anchoress believes that the hardliners might be changing their minds. I object to the notion that people opposed to the bill were "hardliners". The economic realities underlying illegal immigration must be dealt with and recognized in order to understand the problem and create a workable solution. As for changing minds, I don't think so. Even though I voted for President Bush twice and am proud of those votes, I have respectfully disagreed with his position on the issue from the beginning. That is, I'm not a one-issue voter. But I do believe his solution would have been like Reagan's solution: delaying the inevitable for the next generation and the next. It could be argued that the stalemate does the same. True enough, but it won't involve junky legislation that further threatens our national security.

The policy of viewing illegals as a commodity and not people, will cause untold grief worldwide. Economic instability is just the beginning. How will the corrupt countries deal with their vast, poor hoards when Tier 1 economies can no longer support their workers? Civil unrest will be the next step. The step beyond that? Externalization. That is, countries with obliterated economies due to their own corruption, will look at, with envy, their neighbors. Military dominance within will be the first step. Military actions without will be the next step.

Watch Venezuela. Watch Nigeria. Watch Iran. Watch any corrupt country that suffers economic hardships. The reaction from Germany to Japan is always the same: externalize blame, install authoritarian regime who promises that state's version of utopia, become militarily aggressive. That's the problem with Mexico in the future. It was almost the problem in Mexico's last election. A guest worker program, where no guests are wanted because the economy is tanking, will mean little. America is poised on the edge of not wanting or needing illegal immigrants.

The proposed solution ignored the overall economic reality. The big picture has been obscured with all this infighting and false dichotomies between pragmatism and idealism. In this case, everyone has been idealistic and continues to ignore the root causes.

O.J. Denied Bail

So the Juice is where he belongs. My husband noted, and I concur, that it seems like public sentiment drives these kind of decisions now, not what is right or just. Judges and prosecutors seem to find which way the wind blows and do what's politically expedient.

France Threatens Iran with War

It's amazing how much a country changes when their leadership changes.

Ah, The Mammaries

Dr. Helen posts today about a woman with a four month old who wants special breaks during her Med Boards to pump or nurse her daughter. During the nine hour test, she gets 45 minutes in breaks. Dr. Helen, herself, leaked all over her Psych Boards, leaving behind a three week old at home. LaShawn Barber says:

*Sigh* Silly girls wearing stethoscopes.

If she were an on-call surgeon required to drop everything and get to the hospital ASAP to perform emergency surgery, is she going to whine about pumping then? Who will she sue — the patient?

If we women want to be equal to men, we’ve got to roll with it, know what I mean? No extra time to get the job done. No dumbed-down standards. Equal means equal, gals.

Ah, the good old days. Their stories recall to mind being heavily pregnant with twins and taking my final board examinations. I was huge and had to do all sorts of orthopedic tests, sham adjustments, etc. That is, that Board exam had a couple practical sections--I wasn't sitting behind a desk thinking deep thoughts the whole time. At that point in my pregnancy, I wasn't thinking much of anything. I was so fried, in fact, that I didn't prepare. I played the odds. I counted on my long term memory. Boards are graded on a curve. I did a simple calculation before the exam: I think I'm smarter than at least half of these people. My friends were terrified for me.

I did pass the exam, thankfully. I can't imagine taking an exam suffering through let downs and and leaving a three week old. But I did notice this, each time I had a kid: My mental faculties seemed to miraculously bounce back after pregnancy (there is a window before exhaustion fugue sets in and the high right after birth wears off).

Back to the lady wanting special circumstances. Isn't there a compromise? Couldn't she be allowed to go pump after sections she finishes early--as long as she's supervised? That doesn't seem like a huge accommodation to me. It seems to be a humane response so the woman doesn't have to suffer the indignities of being a wet mess.

As for LaShawn's point about women waiting on their career. It has been a circuitous path for me. I had a special needs child come out of that birth that required my full-time care. But there was really no better time for my schooling. And lots of women time the birth of their children with their graduations so they are no longer in school. And certain specialties in the medical profession are especially suitable to parenting, too. I have a MD friend who works part-time for 10 hours a week and makes more money than she could doing anything else and parents the rest of the time.

Just sayin'.

H/T Glenn Reynolds who says "GIVING A NEW MEANING to the term "breast exam."

Housing: Pricing Out the Working "Poor"

Seeing naked men dance on bars was not the strangest parts of visiting Key West a couple years ago believe it or not. The strangest was reading the housing section of the newspaper. A wealthy person could hardly afford to live there. How were the locals doing it? Little ramshackle homes weakened by termites and flooding crammed together on back streets and they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. People who lived or rented there shared their homes with others. But the majority of working people were being shipped in by bus each week from Miami, I was told.

And the workers in Key West didn't work very hard. One art dealer told me that he move to Key West from Michigan and was made manager by the wealthy owner within a month. He actually came to work, worked at work and felt tied to the success of the business. It was impossible to get good help, who spoke the language and could handle all aspects of the business. In another shop, the cookie sales girl had a masters and moved from Israel. She hung out with and lived with people she met. Key West was a place to travel through. She wasn't staying.

A service worker could not expect to work, live and raise a family in Key West. He couldn't expect to do that in Destin, Florida either or much of the Florida coast. And now, he can't expect to do that in parts of Connecticut and in San Francisco. I don't know how a truly middle class person lives in most of New Jersey or in and around New York City. Many people who would be comfortable in Houston feel poor in these places because all their income is sucked away in housing.

This is a huge problem.

The executive director of St. Luke's LifeWorks, the Rev. Dick Schuster, says Stamford and boomtowns like it should tackle the housing crisis out of self-interest.

"The people who are working in your restaurants, your fire and police departments, are all of a sudden finding they can no longer afford to live in the community where they work," he said. "And those who do choose to live in the community become the true working poor, hanging on by their thumbs."

What is the solution to this crunch? Are there to be service cities housing the servant class who get bussed to the wealthy areas?

In the planned community where I live, the solution has been apartments, low income housing, senior housing, and modest homes built next to village centers. People of modest means can walk to school, shopping, restaurants, etc. Heck, people of means can do the same thing. But the community was planned to include everyone at that outset.

To me, it's ironic that the bastions of liberalism like San Francisco, New York, Connecticut and Key West have ended up discriminating against those in the "lower classes". It is a problem, though, that will spread throughout the country if it isn't addressed.

How will the free market fix this problem? One thought is that good service will become extraordinarily expensive or non-existent so that the exclusive enclaves will become a double-edged sword. All the trappings of the rich will only be trappings for those of exceeding great wealth. Perhaps the mid-wealthy will move away to find better, more modest pastures. This is already happening around Silicon Valley.

This economic creep, where a teacher or police officer or grocery store manager is considered "poor" is distressing. These are good, middle class jobs that should earn enough for entry into home ownership where they work. Or, to me, they should.

Child Mortality Hits Record Low

Child mortality dropped because of easy, low-tech, and mostly nutritional improvements:

1. Breast-feeding
2. Vitamin A drops
3. DDT spraying, draining swamps, and mosquito nets
4. Immunizations
   

If hygiene and nutrition improve, babies live. If they aren't bit by nasty bugs, babies live. Pretty simple solutions, actually. But the most difficult solution is to end war:

Despite the improvement, two sets of countries have worsened, Unicef said: those in southern Africa that have been hit hardest by AIDS, and those that have been at war recently, like Congo and Sierra Leone.

Iraq is worse, too, but the numbers come from 2004 and the situation has dramatically changed. It also depends on the part of Iraq. Experts expect better overall numbers the next time the study is released:

Interestingly, Unicef officials said, the new estimate comes from household surveys done in 2005 or earlier, so they barely reflect the huge influx of money that has poured into third world health in the last few years from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Gates Foundation; and the Bush administration’s twin programs to fight AIDS and malaria. For that reason, the next five-year survey should show even greater improvement, they said.

This is good news.

Houssein Zorkot, A Dearborn, Michigan Terrorist That Isn't Getting Press

Houssein Zorkot, a Hezbollah loving, third-year medical student dress in camo, armed to the teeth was founding raving around a public park.

Have you heard about it? Didn't think so.

I'm just wondering if the government and press have some sort of agreement to keep all of these arrests and attacks off the radar so as to not induce copy-cats or give the bad guys more press. Or, if the press just doesn't want these stories out because they conflict with the narrative.

H/T Instapundit

Pharmacists Have Had It, Too

The web is full of all sorts of intelligent, um, incisive people. The Angry Pharmacist is my new favorite. Here's what he says about Medicaid users on Clomid (the drug that forces your ovaries to pop multiple eggs thus increasing your chance of pregnancy):

That sounds pretty much like welfare to me.

I dont know where you got the bum idea. Obviously you are so ignorant that you walk around with a Medicaid chip on your shoulder looking for a fight. The whole rant you were complaining about was that Medicaid patients (who you say are "dissabled and on ssi or welfare or medicaid") should not be entitled to fertility drugs. So am I mean for making a legit point? Or are you just an idiot for wanting to bring children into this world that you self-proclaim you cannot afford.

I'm not against having children (unless you're 14, more on that later), just not while you require society's dime to survive. I guess common sense like that is why I'm a pharmacist and you aren't.

My favorite post so far, though, is about Heather, The Human Shield. Heather is the poor dear fronting for Insurance companies looking to screw doctors and patients. Here's the Angry Pharmacist's take:

So it pains me to be upset when I hear Heather's voice on the other end. I know its not her fault that her employer is retarded, or that the wrong ID number got printed on the card. I know that if she ran the world everything would probably work smoothly. Shes there to pay her rent and buy herself food. She is probably going to college or basically cant get a job anywhere else. Here we are screaming at them for something that they have absolutely no control over just to vent our frustration. Are we any better than those asshole doctors who scream at us because expensive-drug-x is $900?

So next time you're all fired up about WellCare not having the right ID number, and you hear Healthers voice on the other end, think of this post and realize that its not Heathers fault. She's there to do a job much like you are and probably goes home and rags on pharmacists like I ran on Drug Reps.

(Yeah, I realize this post isn't full of hate, bad words, sexual talk or anything like that. It just sorta struck a nerve that I'm sure lives deep down within all pharmacists. I'll try better next time. Fuck insurance companies and drug reps..There.. All better.. :-) )

Everyone loves their pharmacist, but pharmacists are people, too.


H/T Instapundit

Is Graduate School Worth It?

I can't help but believe that advanced degrees have reached a critical mass. At some point, the money invested in multiple degrees could fund a business or keep parents flush for retirement.

Or, since the U.S. has an increasingly knowledge-based and specialized economy, will all sorts of degrees continue to be in demand? College money guys hope so.

The New York Times reports that advanced degrees are more in demand than ever. Are they worth it when a person can download classes from elite schools on iTunes and specialize through the ubiquitous knowledge on the internet? There was a time when the only place one could receive a lecture was at a college. Not so today.

But the market will pay:

And many students believe that these multiple degrees are highly valuable in today’s competitive job market.

Are they really, though? More research needs to be done, because the only ones I see benefiting are the colleges and loan institutions. I'm not alone in this belief. More on the relative value of an education here.

Washington D.C.

Last week, I took the kids to D.C. As mentioned before, we hit the major branches of government, landmarks, memorials and the zoo. We were very busy and crammed lots of experiences into three days--including swimming in the hotel pool. I'm still tired.

My overall impression was this: Solidity. The city is solid. A law on the books since Britain still viewed us as theirs, requires rock and other hard building materials due to fires set to the White House and Capital by the aforementioned former enemy. Ahem. It's a good law. The city has a permanence and beauty because of it.

D.C. is strikingly beautiful, more beautiful than I remembered. I was eight the last time I visited and two memories remain from that visit: Monticello and the Lincoln Memorial. My brother peed on the porch at Monticello causing my sister and I much amusement and my parents complete mortification. The Lincoln Memorial was huge. Who doesn't love Abraham Lincoln? And how could you forget the Lincoln Memorial?

My kids favorite spot echoed mine. They absolutely loved the Washington Monument, the Mall and the Lincoln Memorial. We took it in at sunset. Grass and water and a balmy breeze served as the back-drop to these massive tributes to great men in addition to serving as baseball diamonds and football practice fields. The city is grand and eminently human at the same time.

The humanity mobs you immediately. We took the train from Philadelphia and ended in Union Station. People were purposeful and determined and seemed oblivious to the breath-taking architecture all around them. They marched to the cab or the Capital in their suits and talked about important things.

That first afternoon, we toured the Capital. Katie Weiss, a staff assistant to our representative Kevin Brady, made sure everything was perfect. She is a gem. In fact, the staff members of our Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson were incredibly helpful, too. I would very much recommend contacting your congress people to facilitate your Washington trip. When I saw the poor herded masses going on the public tours, I sighed in relief. The private tours are fabulous.

The interesting thing about all the buildings toured in Washington is that they are working, living monuments to the past, present and future. People are scurrying hither and thither debating in the halls. The history, the architecture, the tradition, the offices, the seniority, the squabbles, combine to form a hopeful soaring ideal anchored by a common-sense pragmatism.

Walking through the Senate side, I saw Carl Levin and this and that Senator. So many familiar, smiling (we were obviously not working there--with school in session, the kids were the only ones in the Capital and office buildings both times we visited) Senatorial and Congressmen faces. We met Senator Hutchinson. My son was overwhelmed with joy at meeting her and gave her a huge, unexpected, hug. She is a tiny wisp of a woman, dressed smartly in a sherbet suit surrounded by buzzing black-clad staffers. We were the last in line and she clearly had somewhere important to be, but the hug surprised and disarmed her and everyone laughed and cooed at the cuddle. Senators are people, too.

We received floor passes to sit in both the House and Senate galleries. On the house side, nothing much happened. On the Senate side, we had the opportunity to hear stringent debate on some bill where the Army would purchase farm land. We just missed a full vote on five different pieces of legislation, much to my son's dismay. We had to high tail it over to the White House to take the rare, coveted and to my daughter at least, disappointing tour.

The White House is first, and foremost, just a house. It is smaller than I'd imagined. It's not that small, but still, the furniture and room dimensions were designed around smaller people. It felt...intimate. My daughter was disgruntled because we couldn't see the President's bedroom and the other parts of the living quarters. And she was not pleased that she couldn't meet the President or First Lady. I told her to write a letter.

Perhaps the most amazing building in Washington is the Library of Congress. Words fail to describe the experience. Truly, it's magnificent. It is knowledge in architectural form. The Library holds up the intellectualism of freedom and democracy that goes back to Socrates.

Visiting D.C. renewed my faith in our institutions. It will last as long as I don't watch the news.